Soybean growers to receive loans under PASS guarantee

DAILY NEWS Reporter

RUVUMA-based soybean growers will next month start receiving loans from commercial banks to boost production of the crop. The Private Agricultural Sector Support (PASS) guaranteed loans will benefit some 3,000 farmers in Ruvuma region’s Namtumbo and Songea Rural districts.

“We have already visited the potential loan beneficiaries who have formed 25 groups...our target is to have the loans disbursed as early as November,” PASS Business Development Manager Hamis Mmomi told reporters in Dar es Salam over the weekend, citing National Microfinance Bank and Akiba Commercial Bank as the financial institutions that are willing to finance the farmers.
He said PASS is already in the process of writing business plans for the farmers’ groups to qualify for the bank loans.
The new financing will add impetus on an ambitious Soya ni Pesa (SNP) project, which the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Tanzania is implementing under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The project has through CARITAS Tanzania worked with over 6,000 farmers in the Southern region in the areas of capacity building, with the aim of reaching over 11,000 farmers.
According to Mr Mmomi, Tanzania which has been growing soybeans since the early 1990s, remains with huge, yet untapped potential for domestic production and processing, given the right investments.
He said the envisaged soybean producers will enjoy the readily available and reliable market for their produce, with Silverland Tanzania Limited, an Iringa-based chick food manufacturer offering to buy all the product. Soybeans, which are less costly and more nutritious, have become the most preferred input in animal feed manufacturing.